Oh the joys of living in Arizona

[Andos99]

My tap water comes out 95 degrees at night on cold...... Everytime I do a water change I have to buy 3 bags of ice! Sigh.

 

[imrandome1]

wow, unlucky, just adds another cost to keeping fish, but its worth it.

 

[Stretch]

Try doing your water change in the morning.

 

[TomK2]

Buy a longer python or add hose length to the python and fill slower? Water running through a hose is kinda like a cars radiator, it looses heat as it travels down the hose. Put a fan over the extra coils of the python? Now you really have a radiator. The thinner the hose, and the longer it is, the more heat you can get out of the water. I don't know how much lenght you would need to add for a given hose diameter, but it is something you can experiment with when bored or have too much time on your hands. This presumes that your room temp is signifigantly below the water temp. If that doesn't work, have a few coils of the python/hose in a bucket with ice in it. As the water passes through the coils that are in the ice water, heat should be lost rather rapidly, again, this would be highly dependent on the hose diameter, lenght of hose, and flow rate. But this might cut down on the amount of ice you need to use? And be more regulatable (is that even a word?) than adding ice to the tank.

 

[joannde]

TomK2 - the "running through the bucket" idea is fantastic ! I would add that the bucket should contain both ice and water which would eliminate the air pockets between the icecubes - that would definitely do the trick.

 

[Resurgent]

You could just fill up a bucket at night and wait till the next day to use it. If you leave it without a lid it should cool down.

 

[TomK2]

For a tank at 80 degrees, getting a one third water change, putting in 85 degree water would only raise the tank temp 1.7 degrees transiently. Thus, one only needs to get the tap water down to 85 degrees for a 33% water change . Running the 95 degree water through coils that are in 75 degree (room temp) or less water might do the trick for small tanks needing only a 5 gal water change ( 5 gals of 95 degree watergoing through a 5 gal bucket of 75 degree water gets you 85 degrees if heat is conducted well and flow is not too fast and allows equilibaration). Thus, for smaller tanks no ice is even needed. But then again, for smaller tanks, you could just use the 5 gals that sat out overnight and cooled down, skipping the coils altogether, unless you wanted to avoid the whole sloshing bucket thing.

But Andos says he uses 3 bags of ice, so I bet his tank is not that small. He needs ice if he wants water flow so that it doesn't take all evening to do a water change. Even a little ice would lower the bucket temp signifigantly, enough to get the tap water running through the coils down. A water and ice mix in the bucket really takes a lot of heat to get all the ice melted so that the temp can increase in the bucket(remember the energy is extra for a phase change like solid to liquid, liquid to gas). So, fill a 5 gal bucket partially with water, let cool down overnight. Put in coils, add ice. After a few minutes to allow the room temp water to cool down a bit, start filling tank. Should be very efficient. One could even monitor the temp going into the tank, too hot, slow down flow, too cold, speed up flow.

 

[Resurgent]

For a tank at 80 degrees, getting a one third water change, putting in 85 degree water would only raise the tank temp 1.7 degrees transiently. Thus, one only needs to get the tap water down to 85 degrees for a 33% water change . Running the 95 degree water through coils that are in 75 degree (room temp) or less water might do the trick for small tanks needing only a 5 gal water change ( 5 gals of 95 degree watergoing through a 5 gal bucket of 75 degree water gets you 85 degrees if heat is conducted well and flow is not too fast and allows equilibaration). Thus, for smaller tanks no ice is even needed.

But Andos says he uses 3 bags of ice, so I bet his tank is not that small. He needs ice if he wants water flow so that it doesn't take all evening to do a water change. Even a little ice would lower the bucket temp signifigantly, enough to get the tap water running through the coils down. A water and ice mix in the bucket really takes a lot of heat to get all the ice melted so that the temp can increase in the bucket(remember the energy is extra for a phase change like solid to liquid, liquid to gas). So, fill a 5 gal bucket partially with water, let cool down overnight. Put in coils, add ice. After a few minutes to allow the room temp water to cool down a bit, start filling tank. Should be very efficient. One could even monitor the temp going into the tank, too hot, slow down flow, too cold, speed up flow.

Really good idea!

 

[QTOFFER]

Andos, I don't know how much water you're talking about, but is there any chance you could chill some in your fridge?

Instead of buying ice, you could freeze several plastic containers of water and smash up the ice blocks in a heavy canvas bag with a 3 lb hammer.

On an off topic note, I hope there aren't any wildfires near you. I heard that Sedona got scorched pretty good, and that the North Rim of the GC is closed.

 

[Andos99]

I'm so glad there are people much smarter then me here. TomK, I think your idea is fantastic and I'm going to try it on my next water change. I never really put that much thought into a water change. I usually stretch the three bags of ice, plus whatever is in my freezer and do all three of my tanks at the same time which usually still isn't enough and my water temp goes up a few degrees. My fish seem to handle it fine, but I'd love to experiment with everyones ideas.

QTOFFER - it's the same story here every summer and it's really too bad. I live in Phx. so I don't see the fires first hand but something here burns every summer. A few years back when I lived in Tucson, Mt. Lemmon got completely destroyed....the ski resort and everything. You could see the flames from anywhere in the city at night and the smoke just covered everything. My father owns a cabin up in Pinetop so he's always worrying out about this kind of stuff. I have a few friends that work as wildland fire fighters every summer for the money......they can make close to 30K in a few months working 18+ hours a day. That's not for me, but they love it.

 

[Stretch]

My father owns a cabin up in Pinetop so he's always worrying out about this kind of stuff. I have a few friends that work as wildland fire fighters every summer for the money......they can make close to 30K in a few months working 18+ hours a day. That's not for me, but they love it.

I fought fires in Pinetop for the past two summers. This is my first summer off in 4 years. You're right on about the money, but you want to die when it's over.

 

[Caincando1]

We have the opposite problem here in Minnesota, the water is alway cold.

 

[hulkamaniac]

You could just fill up a bucket at night and wait till the next day to use it. If you leave it without a lid it should cool down.

That's a good idea. If you add an airstone in there too you can dechlorinate your water at the same time.